All posts for the month August, 2014

The old style of power supply is now called non-Modular. Notice the mess of cable that are permanently attached to the power supply. Well if you don’t need them all, which is likely, then you have to wrap that mess up and tie it somewhere inside the case.

In contrast, here is a modern Modular power supply:

Fully Modular Supply

Notice that there are no cables hanging out of this PSU at all. You only use the cables you need to run your system. Modular power supplies are a little more expensive, and they are only provided for larger sizes. 550 Watts is about the smallest Modular PSU that’s available.

The cabinets have arrived for the sideboard. I just need to assemble them. Bolt the cabinets together, install the Alder back splash, toe kick, and put the granite tops on top. Woops. The drawer fronts are wrong. I ordered “Five Panel” drawer fronts. They should look like the doors with stiles around the edges and panels in the center. Oh well, the right ones are on order. Continue Reading

UHD TVs, sometimes called 4K TVs are appearing for very affordable prices. With the demise of 3D – no manufacturers are shipping 3D TVs this year – the TV makers had to come up with something to get us to buy another TV.

I was recently shocked to see a 55″ LG UHD TV for $1798 at Walmart. The TV looks awesome. It’s IPS, which means better off-axis viewing. Right next to the LG model is a Samsung model, but it had no price attached. In contrast to the large LG display touting 4K and UHD, the Samsung display had in small letters – 2160p, 240Hz – which is clearly a UHD spec.

There are two remaining problems with UHD that don’t seem to be slowing down manufacturers at all, but should give you pause before you drop your money on these sets:

The UHD standard is not finalized. It sure would be nice if the standard would finalize before you bought that new TV. For a complete discussion of the entire problem of the UHD standard, watch this TWIT episode of Home Theater Geeks.